


mother eye

by wegotodecember (imaginedecember)



Series: the carry home waltz [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Trapper/Weatherman Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-02 21:37:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17271566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginedecember/pseuds/wegotodecember
Summary: When Arthur had nearly died on that mountainside, he had gained another ability. Mother eye.To see so clearly nature and human nature, to see them both raging around him in a blinding white storm.To ask the final question and to make the final choice.Will you kill or will you love?***Highly recommend reading prequel. Also, spoilers for the whole game***





	mother eye

**Author's Note:**

> *****I highly recommend reading the prequel*****. You may be able to get by without, as I know that it is long, but a lot of this is directly after the previous installment in the series. There is also some **non-graphic violence** towards the end of the piece. 
> 
> Again, no TB for Arthur so he lived, Hosea lived, Dutch is working through his issues, and Arthur works for the government as someone who details weather phenomena in their area as well as being a trapper and hunter.
> 
> Explanation of Arthur's new ability:
> 
> I felt like something was lacking to Arthur's ability, besides Dead eye and Eagle eye so I gave him what I called Mother eye.
> 
> Essentially, he sees weather before it happens as well as when it is already happening. He can track weather events, so to speak. It, of course like the other eyes, has limits and downtime. 
> 
> I've also included the other side of nature to this ability which is human nature. Arthur can sense moods and airs about people, if he taps into Mother eye, which I think suits well with his already loving and empathetic ways. 
> 
> Hopefully that makes sense and I apologize for another rambling, emotional installment in this series. Thank you very much to anyone who reads, comments, likes, and bookmarks. You are all lovely <333.

Arthur teethed his glove off and pressed naked skin into the wet, heavy snow that was packed tight on the Earth’s hills, nooks, and crannies. 

The cold stung. His fingers burned and cracked but she was there, rumbling underneath the surface and Arthur gladly welcomed her in.

His Mother eye, so unlike the gut-wrenching coldness of his Dead eye and so in tune with his Eagle eye. Nah, come to think of it, his Mother eye was a twisting together of each.

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut then opened them.

The world was tinged in green. Snow popped up in brighter tones. Things like lonely deer and bounding rabbits subsided in favor of nature’s fury. The clouds roared and slid along the sky. Storm. Feets of it. Burying deep. Days of it. Seasons of it? God, no.

Arthur could see it all coming, the land before him turned rotten with its consumption. He sighed and released his hand from the Earth. His vision snapped back to its current reality and the damn pounding and ringing in his head wasn’t new but it was still so dizzying. 

And, like always, Hosea came to him, in a whisper on the wind. A promise of spring on winter’s coattails. “Success is not the end, Arthur. Neither is failing.” And softly, so softly tuned in green, Hosea added, “The courage to keep going afterwards is a mighty strength to have.”

Mother eye.

Arthur hummed as its two-pronged nature suddenly came into focus. Mother nature and human nature so intricately woven. If Arthur were to tune into Mother eye now, he’d see Hosea, soft and calm beside him and little hints of agitation would be known. And Arthur counts himself lucky that he didn’t think of this, that he didn’t have this eye when it had all gone downhill. He had witnessed enough suffering and tragedy as well as the consequences of said suffering and tragedy. He didn’t need an eye for it. To gain it after that mountainside was…soothing, a sewing together of a broken, confused soul. That blind man he had met. Yes, a broken, confused soul he was. 

He knew what had been right all along but was too chicken shit, too scared, too fearful to understand it, to listen to it, to see it, to feel it.

Had been guided by Dead eye.

Felt disgusting using it on folks who didn’t deserve it, felt like shooting all them O’Driscolls and Pinkertons was pointless.

Had been guided and shown Eagle eye.

Charles. Arthur still laughs about when he had told Charles that robbing was a good thing, only to be shown something entirely different. 

Then, all that had happened, that stupid botched bank job of Dutch’s that he knew wasn’t right. Too much noise. Had to just go away like Hosea had been saying since the beginning. And Dutch, well, Arthur couldn’t say that he didn’t deserve it, good intentions subsided. Poor old bastard deserved to have Hosea taken, to have Arthur beaten and left to die by Micah, to have John turn on him for his betrayal, to have a whole lot of them leave. Deserved it. Good intention ‘s poor excuse. 

Arthur yearned to talk to Dutch but talking to Dutch was like trying to eradicate his Dead eye.

Intrinsically together.

Like his special abilities, he supposed he’d call them.

Jesus. He slipped the glove on, and panted hard through this momentary, warring moment. Let his heart race and quiver before settling. Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. Nothing-.

“Hey, grumps, whatcha doing out here?”

John.

Arthur grunted and rose from his crouched position. John was huddled in his winter coat, puffing out hard, hot breaths at the cold. “Jesus, seriously, you trying to freeze to death?” Then quiet, as John took in their white, blinding surroundings, “No, wait, this one of ‘em weather things you were speaking about?”

Arthur nodded because that was easier than vomiting up the truth. It would rework everything everyone around him knew. The abilities. And giving in to them talks with Dutch.

God, he had just gotten them to stay without so much of a word of this. Didn’t think they’d stay if he said it but then would that be the best chance of keeping them safe? Make Arthur look like a crazy fool that’s gone and lost his head from loneliness up here in the cabin. Scare ‘em off. Away from the storm. Or would it be better to keep them near? A fool’s wish.

Arthur rubbed a hand along his beard and that got John’s focus on him. “Arthur?”

And Arthur just…said it. He had already told them all so much. He didn’t know what to do. So…afraid like he had been before the mountain. Felt like telling John again to leave and don’t turn back, that, no, this time Arthur was sure that it was the end. 

Arthur whispered, in between a heartbeat and John’s blinking eye so sharply focused on him, “I got these abilities? I don’t know how I got them but I do. I can…I see the best way to kill someone. Dead eye ‘s what I called it. And I can see herbs and animals. That’s Eagle eye. And I can also see what nature’s doing, either here in this world, in this weather, or in a living body. Called it Mother eye.” Arthur paused, watched as John narrowed his eyes at him, those gears a turning something fierce. He continued before John could edge in with a ‘What?’ that would turn into a ‘I’m leaving for good’. “There’s a big storm coming, John. Ain’t much gonna make it.”

He looked down and away at the world around them. It was still. No wind. No sun. Just too pretty, too calm. It reminded Arthur of finding John on that mountainside mostly dead from wolves. It reminded Arthur of nearly dying on his own mountainside. And here they were, somehow in the cold again, at the end again.

Arthur huffed out, “Awe hell, John, you don’t gotta say nothing. Just-.”

John was so close to him so suddenly. The boy was looking at him like he was a real piece of work and Arthur supposed he was. A reason why all left laid out before them like the dead to rest. But John…he calmly pressed his gloved hands across Arthur’s eyes, shutting them. “John, what in the hell-?”

“Shut up.” The words were so quiet and John was so still as he let Arthur’s world go black and blank. Arthur waited, then, “Tell me how these damn abilities work again.”

“Well, first, you open your eyes to see-.”

“Arthur.” And John could hear the boy roll his pretty, earthy eyes back into his skull. “Tell me again what these are.”

Arthur grumbled, shifting around but John stilled him like a horse, shushing him. He huffed, “Dead Eye’s where everything goes like yellow and orange and red…like sunsets?”

“The setting of the enemy’s sun more like.”

The chuckle got wrenched out of Arthur. It felt like his heart was laughing, that his heart was pounding far too fast in chest. Seeing blank and blackness like this…Arthur could picture it and it was making him queasy but hearing John laugh was easing it and his damn heart was still a spinning, spinning, spinning-.

“Use it now.”

The spinning paused. “What?”

John pressed a little harder but still easy on Arthur’s closed eyes. “Try it now.”

Arthur laughed. “Need a gun for that, John. Or a bow.”

John kicked the snow with his boot. A little cold landed on Arthur’s pant leg. “Watch it! Damn near get us both frozen out here.”

“Oh, shut it. Keep them eyes closed, Morgan.” Arthur felt the pressure leave his eyes but he was loyal…to a fault. And to dumb idiots like pretty boy John Marston. He swung his arms for something to do and sighed and listened to John rumble and grumble his way through digging into his satchel. Who keeps their guns in satchels and not in holsters? Arthur rose an eyebrow and he hoped John could see it. John cursed. And Arthur laughed. Yeah, he saw it. “Here, finally.”

Something got shoved into Arthur’s swinging hands. His gloved fingers curved over it like a memory. A sunset crisp memory tinged with Dead eye darkness. The feeling of a gun in Arthur’s hands was now the feeling of a choice as well as a rose tinged dreamy memory. 

Will you kill? Innocence so fleeting. And so senseless was a murder guided by monstrous revenge. So horrid was this life.

Or will you love? Because, yes, there was also love and beauty. 

He tilted away from where he hoped John still was, real and tangible in front of him, and aimed the gun at a faraway part of the scenery.

He leaned into the calling, the whisper of Dead eye and heard the slip slide of his mind. 

Even with eyes closed, Arthur could see the world light up in oranges and reds and yellows. He heard a click. The Dead eye got something. So, he pulled the trigger. 

His heart kicked up.

An animal cry.

“Damn, Arthur.” John sounded irreverent. He felt the boy’s hands slip and jumble their way down his arm to the gun and Arthur willfully let him take it. The Dead eye slipped away and Arthur swayed a bit. 

“John.”

John easily heard him, felt the uneasiness in him that Arthur allowed to leak out, and coaxed his arms around Arthur, holding him and righting him. “You’re right in front of me. Now, keep ‘em closed.” And Arthur did, letting the blackness and blankness come back. He turned into John’s voice, the feel of him surrounding him to keep him steady. 

He cleared his throat. “Hadn’t used that in a while.”

John laughed. “Yeah, well, you were always a good shot but one who cautioned their shots.”

“Unlike some people.” Because, really, give a gun to John Marston and Dutch van der Linde and a whole town would be dead.

But John hummed as the metal sound of the gun clicked and tinkered away as it was tucked back inside the satchel. And-.

Oh.

John didn’t have a gun holster on. 

Oh.

“Wait, John-.”

“I don’t shoot much anymore, Arthur. I’m more of a ranching kinda fellow now.”

That was still funny to Arthur but this moment wasn’t really beginning to be funny anymore. Because John was changing. And Arthur had been changing for a while now.

Change.

It was a funny smell that was on the wind.

That had been chasing them all for years now.

“Now, what about this…whatchya call it?”

“Eagle eye.”

“Right. That.”

“John, I don’t-.”

“Please, Arthur.”

This felt too much like a duel in the middle of a rousing town. 

Arthur, suspended and dizzy from Dead eye’s not so happy return. Swaying. Twitching. John’s arms slipping and falling from around Arthur to pressing calm, stable fingers into his lower back, seemingly to keep Arthur still but Arthur felt like he was being pulled into John. Heart attached to John’s form, its heart seeking its thief. 

Everything was dark and black.

And it was too much like the mountain when Arthur had been halfway between death and life. Too much, too much-.

John’s breath on his lips. John, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. John’s fingers moving up from lower back to Arthur’s neck. A soft, pretty spot for a wild, pretty boy. Arthur fucking keened. He threw his arms up and wrapped them around John’s neck. John, startled, said, “Arthur, what’s gotten into you?” And Arthur didn’t know. He didn’t. 

He just knew…

He just knew…

All them lonely, dark night thoughts led to this.

A choice.

The choice.

John, cradled against Arthur’s chest as Arthur pulled him into the tightest, warmest hug. “Damn it, John. ‘M not…’m not that man anymore-.” The Dead eye man. He wasn’t that. He was-. “’M trying to be a good man.”

John’s hands came back up to grab hold of the back of Arthur’s jacket and Arthur felt them tug and bunch the fabric. Real, tangible. Arthur dragged his fingers through John’s scraggly hair and tugged some knots into smoothness. 

Yes, be the light in the darkness.

The eye in the blankness, in the blackness.

And oh, oh. Arthur couldn’t help it. The tears. He tasted salt. And he couldn’t stop. His heart was lunging and so full with John in his arms again, with this hope and love and loyalty and family and nature’s gentle, furious pull. He coughed and hacked and may have rubbed his wet, leaking nose against John’s collar but John didn’t seem to care.

John was hushing him again and Arthur quite liked it even though it made him feel small, it made him feel warm and that was okay, that was good. “You are, Arthur. You’re so damn good.” A hard tug at Arthur’s jacket and John was moving his head around so he could press a shaking kiss to the side of Arthur’s neck. And his breath was hot and warm. And real and tangible. Smelled like earth and mud, like John’s particular scent underneath all that. Smoke and fire. Wild and lonesome. Fearsome and warm. Arthur smiled against John’s collar where he had tucked his head. Feeling John so close, his summer boy, yes, his, was better than facing the rising sun. “I love you, y’know? And you’ve changed but that’s a good thing, ain’t it? We all have. I wouldn’t…I, uh, wouldn’t trade any of this for nothing.”

And Arthur allowed it, opened his eyes and tuned into Eagle eye.

He saw deer.

They were bounding across the white plains, snow kicking up behind them. Two. No, four of them. In a pack, heading out to where they could drink or eat. No one around to hunt them just yet. And there were herbs tucked beneath them as they walked, herbs that would be found if you had pushed away the snow. Sustainability, life and healing, underneath the freezing white.

Let Eagle eye, its blue tinges, fade into green, into Mother eye and was so sullen to be reminded of the storm coming, of the man in his arms that he had the chance to lose, and the men, his fathers, in that cabin, and all the friends and strangers he had known. 

And John, his nature, warm, calm, radiating summer in all its wild, plush greenery smoothing so sweetly with Mother Eye’s green tinged vision all because Arthur was holding him. Arthur shifted around until his gloved hands could hold John’s jaw still so he could bend and kiss him. 

It was still sloppy, choppy. Off centered. Still getting used to how the other moved. John seemed to favor tilting his head to the right so Arthur refocused and shifted, moving left and letting their lips slide right into place.

Arthur broke the kiss for a swift second to breathe before he dove in again, and took the craving that was a blazing inside him through and out his actions. He licked the seam of John’s lips, and John, pretty boy always, let out something so shivery and warm, letting Arthur in to claim. And Arthur did.

And this was new. Even though with a woman, Arthur was always the dominant one, this was something altogether different and heady, like a health tonic, like a miracle trajectory into space and time. It was always different when being the one in charge meant holding the fire, calming the wild, hell, even stroking the wild into coming out. It meant something two pronged and warm balls of fire were settling deep and low in Arthur’s stomach. At John’s sounds. The way he leaned into Arthur and knew Arthur was the one, the only one who could do this to him, make the pretty wild boy calm.

He licked into John’s mouth, twisting and flicking with John’s tongue, meeting him in the middle and sucking. John tilted into him, almost falling over it seemed, in his haste, in his need as he met Arthur’s tongue and danced with him. Arthur slid his tongue back out and slowed the kiss down to quiet, soft pecks. John huffed, a pout practically heard throughout his words as he whined, “Arthur, c’mon.”

But Arthur dragged his fingers through John’s hair and used that hold to tug him back just a bit. And, there, here, Arthur really took in John. His earthy eyes were dancing around Arthur, drinking everything in, and Arthur watched that with a melting heart. He felt…exposed. But he felt all together whole like John’s gaze was filling him in and tucking in everything just right instead of digging around for things to poke and prod, to goad him about. In John’s eyes, maybe he wasn’t an ugly son of a bitch, maybe he was worth redemption. 

He dragged his fingers through John’s hair and smiled. The smile creaked and it was worn, dragged up from depths, but turned golden as he talked, as he confessed, “I thought you were some snot nosed buffoon, a wild, idiotic raccoon-.”

“This is making me feel so loved. Y’know, I think I will go-.”

“But then, you looking like a drowned rat when I helped ya out of that river.”

“Charming. Can’t believe people called you charming.”

“And being so damn eager to shoot and to rob with the rest of us. And, hell, to even learn and read although you ain’t very good. Neither am I, I suppose.”

John had pulled away from him at this point, choosing to glower and pout at some bundle of bare trees that were crackling in little bits of breezes.

Arthur watched those muddy eyes sink and gather up wild kinder. Jesus. He said, “But all that just rolled into one gorgeous, pretty picture.” Added, because the age difference was there, “After you were of age, of course.” No gentleman coerced the young. That was horrid. “And more so now, with you older, and with half your brains taken by wolves and yet somehow wiser. Still gorgeous and wild.”

John’s pout turned a little softer. But he was still all narrowed eyes and bristled body. Tense jaw. Hiked up shoulders. Hair down his eyes to hide that gaze. But Arthur saw. Even without Mother eye to highlight the air about the boy, Arthur knew.

Arthur smiled, couldn’t help it, as he cooed, “Pretty boy, Marston, c’mon, come here.”

John stretched out his neck, his thoughts going this way and that with the movement, before he whipped at Arthur, pointing fingers at him, “Listen here, Morgan, I did all that because, just, y’know, life’s not fair! We don’t get good things. And I wanted these good things. And then you turned into a very more than good thing and it felt so…ain’t nobody talk about this stuff before.” And that was true. Talk of their kind of relationship was hush hush at the very best and death at the very worst and the most common. “Especially being in this new gang and all and I just shoved it down. Told myself that it wasn’t worth chasing.”

Arthur nodded. “And you ran away.”

John sighed. “And I ran away.” Stared right into Arthur and through him and out. “I treated Abigail so poorly, using her as an excuse or a…a, place to hide, or something, I don’t know. But she knew. And I knew. We…we talked.” A hand went up to his neck and John looked as good as a sheep. “I apologized so many times and swore up and down to get her the house she wanted and the farm she wanted and it wasn’t much, still a piece of shit, but I’m trying. And now I’m trying to fix whatever this is.” Shook his head, that hair covering his eyes again. “I hope this is…good, that it’s okay to love you.”

Arthur wanted to reach out to John but he stayed back a bit, letting John take over and say some stuff. When John was done, he hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked John straight in the eyes. “Ain’t no part of me is kidding, John. You’re it. You’ve always been it. If you wanna be it, that is.”

Handed John a choice.

And what Arthur got was an armful of John. 

John bowled him over with his force and this felt like their confession in the cabin got magnified and multiplied to this. Arthur lying in a pile of snow, caught in warmth what with the wool and cotton layers to his jacket and gloves, and John, John lying in between his legs and Arthur’s arms wrapped around him. John was sniffling and hiding it with a gloved hand shoved up against his nose but it just made him prettier. Arthur hugged him tighter.

“Jesus, Arthur.” John panted the words into Arthur’s neck and there was warmth now there too, warmth wherever John chose to press his gloved hands. On Arthur’s stomach, then moving with wild, insatiable energy, to the buttons on Arthur’s coat, his collar, then Arthur’s jaw to tilt him to meet his lips.

Yes, this.

A choice.

Arthur loathed to ruin the moment but he said, “Storm’s a coming, John.” Didn’t even dare to ask, “You with me?”

John looked at him and there was a gleam there in his eyes, in the formation of his smile. “Of course.”

“Well, c’mon then. Got some things to show you first.”

+

The barn was modest and not very big but it was warm and it kept the horses going through the winter. 

Arthur brushed one of them, a towering black stallion, and cooed when he neighed at him. “Wanted to get cows or some other animals but figured, with the storm coming, ‘s wasn’t worth it.” He turned as he spoke to see John dancing between all the horses that Arthur had rescued. He watched as John stopped to pet all the dogs that Arthur had gathered up and taken home. 

“You’ve got yourself a mighty rescue here, Arthur.” And John sounded proud and that was good. Arthur was happy about this little sanctuary that he had managed to conjure up. Hell, hopefully, in the future, there’d be more he could add and John would be a part of it too.

Arthur took a moment to tease. “You could even show me how you much of a ranch hand you really is.”

John pretended to ignore him, choosing instead to be surrounded by all the dogs licking his face and hands. Feeding them and petting them. It was cute. And it made Arthur a little curious.

"How’s it going with the, eh, family?" Arthur brushed the horse one final time, patting its strong and twitching head before moving on to the next stable. The horses had, with all these damn visitors as of late, been agitated when they had been moved to the same side of the barn and closer together with their new counterparts, John, Hosea and Dutch’s horses, but they seemed warmer this way and happier. Their happiness made him think of John. He looked at John, at how the boy was getting lost in the poodle’s curls, the poodle curled up in his lap and uncaring of the howling winter outside.

John cleared his throat. "Good. It ain’t totally perfect. Nothing’s fair. But it – Jack, he, I got him a journal." 

John’s back was conveniently turned away from Arthur but even with that, he could still tell that John was curled in on himself. The air was a little strange. It wasn’t every day that you loved someone who once had a family and who still adamantly cared for said family. Hell, Arthur cared for them too. To know that Abigail and Jack made it, that Jack got out of the unwelcomed gang business was a damn good thing on its own.

Arthur sighed, dusting his hands off. All the horses had been groomed, fed, and loved. He walked over to John, choosing to sit beside him. John had thankfully started a little fire in a makeshift pit that was thankfully free of debris, hay, shavings, or anything else that could be a hazard. He had also started heating up some meat. The poodle still lay in his lap, warm and content to be away from the rest of the pack and instead with the two of them fools. 

With this peace of mind, Arthur chose to bring out the little clay pot that he kept in his jacket pocket for when he needed to grind herbs for potions. He went about the calming and soothing business of grinding them, the movement turning a little more forcefully than he normally would’ve when he started really thinking on John’s words. Jack and a journal. Sure as shit was crazy but it made Arthur smile seeing John trying. Arthur coaxed John on with a quiet "Yeah?"

John ripped a piece of venison with his teeth and munched it to the tune of, "Shut it." And continued, "He likes to draw too. Said Uncle Arthur would be proud of him." But where jealousy or spitefulness would leak, instead, showed a plug of happiness. "And write. He’s got stories for days. Them books I keep getting him are starting to not be enough."

"He need bigger books or...harder ones?" Arthur chuckled. "Look at us, a pair of fools not knowing books." Then, "Ask Hosea then.”

John set the venison on the pan that was placed on the ground for when John inevitably threw it down in a fit of dramatics. Like so. Arthur couldn’t help a tiny smile but he covered it with a harsh roll of his wrist to shove the herbs closer to the fire to melt. 

John’s eyes widened. "I can’t have him reading crime shit!" His words startled the poor dog in his lap and she went bounding off for a quieter spot. Arthur watched her bound away and shook his head. Poor John could spook the whole damn forest if he wanted.

And in response to John’s outcry, he rose an eyebrow and echoed poor old John whose words always seemed to bite him in the ass. "Life’s not fair hm. Show him the dead bodies and then the beauty of the world.” Arthur gestured out to the wide space of earth and sky beyond the barn which, granted, was white as hell and cold, bitter cold really, but underneath all that? Why, the rebirth. Yes. Felt the whispers and the dreams in the pines. Could smell the muddy earth, the heady rain, and the salt of the nearing water. Could hear its rushing and coaxing, come out, come out wherever you are and never leave nature alone. Yes, “He’ll get it."

Arthur set down the clay pot of herbs next to John’s pan of half chewed up venison. A pretty contrary pair they made. 

Johns lips upticked into something melt worthy and Arthur watched it flicker in the fire. Orange and bright and somehow mellow, soft. It fit John so damn well. 

John met his gaze and the earth felt like it had tilted. He looked so…calm. His shoulders not hunched in and his jaw not clenched. All forgotten about. Had Arthur done that to him? He wished. Then, John said, "Yeah? All life had to do was show me you."

Arthur choked but couldn’t for the life of him move away from that gaze of his. He couldn’t help but to stammer out a teasing, "John Marston smooth? Nah” with an added dose of, “You’re just swimming for compliments and we know you can’t do that.”

John huffed. "Beautifully pig headed idiot who can’t look in the mirror-."

“Look, pretty boy, Marston-." 

“Pretty boy? These scars ain’t pretty, Morgan. You’re blind too. A blind, beautiful, really I mean have you seen yourself? I’ve a, uh, thought a lot of things riding beside you.”

Arthur couldn’t help but stammer his teasing to a hard stop. He swallowed. Then shifted. But John beat him to anything else he could’ve said with a harsh, bruising kiss and a panted out, “C’mon, show me them pictures you got.” The ‘since the last time I thought you were dead’ was unsaid but poignant.

Arthur gave him one final kiss before tugging out his journal. John easily curled in beside him, Arthur’s arm around him and John tucked in close. They flipped through the pages together, a weird, tragic journey that felt heavy on their hearts. It was a chapter by chapter replay of everything up to that mountainside. 

All the confessions and questions laid bare in cursive, in scratched out words, in angry dips and drags of a pencil.

In the dying light of the fire, Arthur had handed himself over to John and John took that journal in his hands and parsed through everything.

As he did so, Arthur, who could barely handle rereading most of it, chose, after a little bit of time looking at it with John, to tend to the weather events that he had detailed in his separate journal, the one where he, very unhappily as if he and the journal groaned in protest every time, ripped out the pages and mailed them to the government. 

He looked at the temperature readings, at how nature was dipping back and forth between warm and cold so rapidly and fiercely before settling on nail biting cold. He could sense the storm in these readings, as the winds picked up and changed directions over and over again, spinning and spinning, never really settling. He could hear the screaming and dying that would happen because of it. 

He’d mail these final readings with a warning underneath that they didn’t feel quite right, that there was something coming. Hopefully the government would listen and send out carriers to tell people to get ready or to leave. 

Then, a kiss against his shoulder. Arthur turned away from where he was groveling over the numbers to John. The journal was stuck on Arthur’s drawing of Albert fighting gravity. “He’s a funny fellow,” John said. “I wanna meet him.” Arthur himself felt like he was fighting gravity or, rather, the tumble off the cliffside that was his life.

He murmured, “You will. And there’s plenty more people too.”

And it was solid, a promise woven inside the words. Arthur yearned to hope and dream. A lonely night thought, these hopes and dreams. He shut his eyes and let John coax him to standing.

“C’mon, ‘m sure Dutch and Hosea are wondering if we killed ourselves yet.”

Arthur laughed. “Nah, I’m sure they’d be happy to know that.”

They kicked out the fire, and said goodbye to their rescues.

John bounded out of the barn first, waving his arms wild like at the cabin where Arthur could just about make out Hosea and Dutch’s shadows on the front porch. 

“Boys, I thought the wolves got their revenge on ya.” Hosea teased. 

“Very funny, old man!”

John bolted back into the barn to get his horse and Arthur rolled his eyes at the two’s goading that would, of course, lead them into hunting, fishing, and who knows what else. 

Hosea soon chased after John and into the barn with a swift wave at Arthur and a curt, “Gonna take him hunting. Be back by sunrise!”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Don’t go chasing them bears again.”

Hosea got a gleam in his eye that matched John’s and Arthur knew that they were gonna kick up some trouble in the forest but there was no worry there, even with night’s coming approach and the monsters that claimed the shadows. No, only trust. 

And, well, speaking of trust…

Arthur rose his head to see Dutch on the tiny front porch. He was stark, in complete contrast with the white surrounding him. A man fit for a damn funeral.

Dutch surveyed the area, at Hosea and John’s very loud exit towards the bare forest beyond, then landed his eyes on Arthur. And it felt like Dead eye personified, targeting him.

But Arthur, now, changed, was ready.

He moved.

Walked up those porch steps and stood beside Dutch. 

Dutch watched him all the while, his eyes…Arthur couldn’t place it. Dutch had never looked so sullen. Last Arthur had seen him, the man had been colored in the stench of betrayal. Had looked so monstrous, so lacking in action and words as he let his lion eat his son.

That, that was around Dutch now. Still in waves, it poured out. And that, that was what Arthur saw clouding Dutch’s eyes which had once been so clear, so warm to see. 

Arthur couldn’t help it. He said, in a dragging snarl, “So, Dutch, all them years to this. I don’t know if I believe it when you said it was a plan. See, them words of yours…what were they? Faith and plans? They lost their definition a long time ago.”

It came from the heart.

Utter brutality tinged in red, burst through holes in a dying muscle.

Arthur shivered. He clenched his hands. He couldn’t help but itch for a trigger. He leaned against the railing and gripped it. He stared at white and groveled at it.

White like heaven.

White like halfway between death and life.

White like…

Like a horse carrying its king away from the lion eating its son.

“I was wrong.” The admission was so quiet. “I…I had never wanted to do this to you, son. Or to anyone. But it had to be done. Micah was gonna send the whole damn government after all of you and I had to…to trick him in the only way I knew how which was to fall into his lap and pretend like he was the damn king of Tahiti! For gods sakes, Arthur, I had tried and failed and I am so sorry.”

Dutch was getting louder the more he spoke and he was getting closer too. Arthur turned away. Eased down the front porch steps and stood there in open space to look at the trees like John had done. Except this was real and true rolling waves of anger. It felt like whenever he had to force himself to use Dead eye. Anger. It was orange and red and targeted. 

He felt…vial. Like throwing up. 

“You should’ve just listened to Hosea.” Arthur rubbed at his chin. “He didn’t like us making noise and he didn’t like Micah.” Arthur remembered very fondly the many times that Hosea had treated Micah like the rat he was. “Can’t believe you listened to Micah and killed so many people and dug your hands into so much shit just to supposedly save our asses in the end.” Arthur shook his head. He didn’t like it. This alleged full proof plan that Dutch had cooked up. All them lies he had yielded so he could make it look like he was fully into whatever shit hole Micah was planning. 

Dutch, behind him now. His footsteps sounding sure and strong even in wet, heavy snow. Dutch, beside him now, staring at the same trees and breathing the same air. 

“I was not one to want change.” Dutch paused, glanced at Arthur and Arthur caught it, held it. Dutch’s eyes were still cloudy but the man was…cowered in, burdened by a heavy weight. Arthur felt it too. Felt it sitting on his chest like there were dinosaurs sitting there. “But change was coming too fast and too strong. We weren’t made to last. We were of a different time, Arthur.” Dutch sighed, closed his eyes. Arthur turned away, to the trees again. Watched explosions of blue and red burst from the trees. Birds on flight. Arthur wished he had wings. 

“’S easier just to tell everyone we’re done, to go our separate ways.” Arthur watched as the birds swung and swung, flew and flew, as if a gun was pointing straight at them to take them all down, to shed their carcasses of their feathers and to chew on the meek and stringy meat on their frail and fragile bones. “But, I guess Micah and the whole damn government was too close.”

Dutch nodded, excitement jetting into his words. “Yes, now you’re getting it, Arthur!” Then, low, sure, “Micah didn’t want something easy. He wanted a game so I gave him a game. He only had eyes for me but when I gave in so easily, he turned to all of you and him ending all of you one by one was a better game for him. So, I…I pushed everyone away and turned into a monster so that he would continue to play this game and get more bounty on my head with every extra robbery or loud mishap that we had. Then, I killed him. One shot for all of you.” Dutch said the last bit like he was getting strangled.

But Arthur was still watching the birds. They swung in circles before settling on a different branch. They must’ve gotten spooked and had hopped from place to place. Like gang members chasing a golden plan without realizing that their end had come far before that.

There was not one spot in him that would truly get what Dutch had been dealing with. Who knows what he would’ve done in Dutch’s shoes. And it could’ve been much worse. Hosea could’ve been killded. Arthur could’ve died on that mountain. Not many of them could’ve made it out. Who knows with all the what ifs and the could bes.

None of that mattered.

For, here, up in this cabin, Arthur had made peace and peace was settling into Dutch too. 

He could feel it. Dutch’s softness overriding the cloudiness, the waves of sullen tragedy. Arthur finally turned to this man, this father of his, and met his eyes.

Dutch was crying.

It was a shutter shock to Arthur’s system. He blinked back his own tears but he tasted salt nonetheless and for the second time that day, he had found himself crying. He heaved, in, out, and then he shattered as Dutch wrapped an arm around him and pulled him in.

Yes, Arthur sobbed for all the what ifs and the could bes.

He sobbed for the people that they had lost.

He sobbed for the return of Dutch in his heart, albeit a smaller, more delicate return for betrayal will always be there despite reasons saying otherwise. 

It would all be a test now to see where Dutch truly lied.

Arthur felt Dutch squeeze him tight and decided the time was right to tell Dutch everything that had been going on in his rattled brain since the start. 

And Dutch, calm as ever, listened. 

They had moved from outside to inside the cabin. Sharing stew and words and ideas. They had even talked about their separate loves for John and Hosea, how those men had always been a solid stability in their lives and how losing that was about the truest tragedy there ever was.

And it was nice to have this, to be on equal ground with Dutch.

It was warm in the cabin.

The fire had been raging for a while and Arthur damn near needed it after rolling in the snow with John and then talking it out with Dutch. He was sipping his stew when the door to the cabin got yanked open.

John stumbled in first, furs weighing down his shoulders and making him stumble. Hosea came second, shutting the door and throwing his hat, scarf and coat on the floor. 

Arthur rose from the floor where he had been sitting and talking with Dutch. He met John in the kitchen, helped him take the furs and tack them up. John pulled meat out and set it on the counter.

The boy was quick, though, for he, with bloody and dirt stained hands, reeled Arthur in and kissed him. In front of Hosea. In front of Dutch. Well then. Arthur, after the shock settled, kissed him back, sweetly of course. John huffed, still somehow not used to how Arthur abated his wildness so easily, and turned back to the meat to get it ready for storage. 

Arthur shook his head. Damn John Marston turning his head as fuzzy and wooly as the furs he brought in. Then, shyly, he looked over at Dutch and Hosea who were very pointedly talking to each other and not glancing at their sons. 

Arthur cleared his throat. “Well, time for the plan, then?”

He looked at Dutch when he had said that magic word and something in Dutch just…breathed easy, slow. He looked at Arthur and nodded. “Go ahead. Tell us, son.”

And Arthur did.

Because what was coming was another wave of black water.

Another storm. 

There had been hitches and waves of it throughout this long journey.

Joy and beauty and laughter, sure, but death sure as ever and everywhere.

Every chase of the lawman’s hooves. Every gun that pointed at you. Every robbery, train chase, and god knows what else, they all blurred into one ugly, rotting, dying picture.

Yes, this was just another wave of black water.

Arthur knew this was the great dying.

The end.

So, Dutch, Hosea, John, and himself set about their final plan, this one guided by Arthur’s hand and Mother eye.

Arthur felt like he was getting sicker, panicking more often as he slipped in and out of Mother eye. It was wasting him away, eating at him and John didn’t like it. Always stayed close for when Mother eye switched off and left Arthur swaying and dizzy.

But the images Arthur saw were more than damning.

And the images were true and real now as the storm raged.

Blinding white.

Snow and wind fiercer than anything any of them had seen, even being on that mountain so long ago. And so very cold too. 

Arthur tracked the temperatures. Negatives. They had been hitting negatives. And feet of snow. And winds strong enough to knock a person or animal over or to turn them into blocks of ice.

It left a lot of things trapped.

A perfect opportunity for-.

“I saw Milton and Ross.” John shouted over the roaring wind. He and Arthur were riding hard alongside the outer edge of the storm. Arthur kept them as far away as they could, slipping into Mother eye every few moments to keep them on track and to keep the storms course available to them. 

The storm had swept and carved its path from Strawberry to Valentine and was heading for Saint Denis. Somewhere in between were the Pinkertons, still on their hunt for whomever had killed their marionette and had taken the money from Blackwater that they had tried to seize for themselves. 

John and Arthur had been tracking alongside the storm to see if Milton and Ross had fallen for the whispers that the boys had started in all the towns, that little old van der Linde was alive and living well off the Blackwater stash. It would get the revenge going in Milton and Ross and they’d be hungry with it.

Their hunger would lead them straight to the storm.

Arthur coaxed his horse into a slow trot, letting her ease and relax next to John’s horse. John glanced at the storm to their right which they could see causing a blinding, whirling mess. “Jesus.” 

Arthur shook his head. “And their family’s out?”

John nodded. “Yeah, I had to scare them, though, to get them moving. Said their husbands were out on a job and needed them out West.” 

Something in Arthur soured. Revenge was not something that they could have ever afforded and now that type of thing was in nature’s hands. Arthur didn’t know if Ross and Milton were gonna make it through the storm but their families, innocent as they were, were going to. It was a tragic sort of revenge masked as something good and honorable.

It made Arthur sick, for running from the agency and whatever criminals were after them seemed a far better option than this. He turned away from the storm to focus on the path ahead of them. 

He felt John’s gaze but didn’t say nothing so John did, said, “All we’re doing is buying us time to get out.”

It was true but nothing in Arthur felt good about it.

He tuned into his Mother eye and watched in earthy green, the white storm rage behind them and to the right. In front of them, though, there seemed to be some rain coming, a rise in temperatures. The up and down wave of nature’s fury.

It eased something in him even though he could practically hear screaming.

They had all tried to tell people about it and to offer assistance all with the government’s grudging acceptance of Arthur’s warnings, which had furiously leaked out of the weather readings he had given them. Most folks called them fools and lunatics. Others who were into curses and who were downright too gullible or good natured listened. Got supplies where they needed to be. And it got Arthur and the rest of them some much needed time.

Jesus.

Arthur picked up speed in his horse and let her guide herself through the drifting snow and the ugly muck it caused. 

Everything was silent. 

Just wind from the north howling and the easy, colliding warmth from the south until-.

Arthur tuned into his mother eye, something in him crawling and, yes, there, inching alongside the blinding white of the storm was not the warm, albeit scared air from John, but sickly red and oozing like blood. 

Arthur yanked his horse into a dead stop.

John was shouting at him, screaming about something, about-.

Arthur looked straight at the rising forms of Agents Milton and Ross.

“Why, if it’s not Arthur Morgan and John Marston.” 

Arthur stilled, his fingers curling and aching for the pistol in his pocket, for the Dead eye that was growling inside him.

John wavered behind him, a little ways ahead of where Arthur was since Arthur had stopped too suddenly for him to catch up. Arthur waved him back and he could see John dancing in the corner of his eye, not sure, and not liking it, but staying.

Ross and Milton chuckled in near perfect unison, probably thinking of John as a lap dog and less of a threat.

Arthur narrowed his eyes and ground out, “We’re just getting out of the storm’s path, same as all the other folks round here.” 

Milton rolled his eyes. “That’s a nice story you have there, Morgan, but Hosea Matthews and Dutch van der Linde told us a very different, nicer story.”

Something in Arthur curled. The Dead eye was raging now. And Arthur was starting to see reds and oranges take over his visions. He inhaled sharply and eased the eye down. Instead, he turned to Mother eye.

Red was leaking from Milton and Ross’s forms and Milton’s words were black. Black and red like a once fine dressed man. Dutch. 

Arthur thought of Dutch and his pretty words and no action. He thought of Hosea’s warning, that sometimes when a man’s misguided, they’ll speak but what’ll come out will have no action to follow it. Arthur thought of John, of how and when he moved spoke for itself far better than how he used words. And he thought of Micah, how he did everything for his own gain, words and actions and all, how twisted and untrue they were until you needled and poked just right. 

He thought of Dead eye, raging inside him, yearning not for a senseless or innocent target but for the sake of protection. He thought of Eagle eye, which was howling and shivering from the storm, animals and people alike hiding and suffering and herbs, elixirs of life, dying from its grasp. He thought of Mother eye who had been born and given to him on a mountainside caught halfway between life and death so that he may never have to face such black water again.

And, here, she was speaking to him again, saying, honey, there’s a storm over there and a storm in front of you. There’s peace behind you. Follow that peace.

Make that final choice. 

Arthur reached for his gun, shot at the air beside John’s horse and smiled when she got spooked as he knew she would and kicked John and her off further to the West. John was hollering and screaming for her to turn back but she was strong, and she knew too. Mother eye guided her. 

And when that was done, Arthur rose the gun, tuned into Dead eye, and let the oranges and yellows and reds paint a target on Ross and Milton’s heads. 

Will you kill?

Or will you love?

Arthur hesitated.

Dead eye was spinning. It was howling and raging. Wolf like.

But the questions were louder now.

Will you kill?

Or will you love?

Who are you?

He had asked John that a thousand times.

And he had asked himself that every lonely night and to the tune of every dark thought.

The path. 

The choice.

Arthur knew the truth.

Knew that he would choose to craft a forest to grow and protect with its towering trees like soldiers rather than craft a forest to get a bow to kill.

And in these thoughts and choices and colors, in the dizziness of switching between so many abilities, in the warring drumbeat of his heart that called the names of those he cared for and loved, that yearned for a forest to grow in rather than to put in graves, there came two shots from Arthur’s left.

They popped and whirled and sizzled into Ross and Milton’s heads. 

Their bodies slid and tumbled off their bucking horses. Their horses bolted elsewhere, tossing their owners into a crumbled, bleeding heap on the white earth.

Arthur, stunned, turned to see who had done the final deed.

Dutch, on his white horse, bathed in black and red again, looked at him, with eyes unclouded and with hands sure and strong around his gun. Hosea, beside him on his own horse, wearing green and yellows of spring, smiling as well, its curvature and warmth turning up at Dutch and then at Arthur. 

Arthur couldn’t. He couldn’t. He struggled but spat out, “Why?”

Dutch nodded at him with a silly smile. “Why not, son?” Then, “Wouldn’t want you to carry that burden too.” The burden of choosing to kill to protect. The burden of past betrayals. 

Dutch rode over to him, still with that smile and with an easiness that Arthur hadn’t seen for a long, long while. Dutch rose his arm and set on top of Arthur’s head Arthur’s hat, which Arthur had, given to John as a piece of his fallen heart. The hat seemed to ache and throb in tune to Arthur's heart. “There, that’s my son.”

And Arthur was choking. He was dizzy and he was drowning and John, John-.

“Arthur fucking Morgan, don’t do that ever again! I will not hesitate to skin ya!” John was screaming at him, all spit and flying limbs, as his horse finally listened to his kicking and screaming and dragged them back to their group. Arthur couldn’t stop himself. He was focused. He was seeing everything in three-pronged wholeness. The target. The nature, human and earth. The healing herbs and the deer who dreamed with the wolf. 

Suddenly, peace.

Peace.

Arthur hopped off his horse and pulled John down from his. John stumbled at the weird tiltness of going from his horse to ground but was centered again, in Arthur’s arms, as Arthur reeled him in and kissed him.

The storm next to them moving on to the next town, to Emerald Ranch and beyond to Saint Denis and then the sea.

The storm behind them, dead, on the Earth, bleeding red into the white, cold snow.

Everyone they knew who had survived safe.

A way of life once lived wrong turned now into right.

A confused, broken, wayward man found peace and light in the darkness as he himself was the light in the darkness. 

Arthur let John go but kept him close. He tilted his head up to see Dutch and Hosea smiling at them still.

And after that, they rode.

Further and further West to settle under the dying fire of Dead eye, now retired except for called moments of protection or hunting. And under the watchful and helpful Eagle eye who scanned and tracked the Earth for sustainability, for living and healing, to build a forest out of goodness. And, yes, under the Mother eye, who sought love and truth and righteousness for all, human and nature. 

Yes, the great dying was at its end and, yes, the sun will rise.

And, yes, all this will beg you to ask what Arthur had pondered and wrestled with, will you kill or will you love?

Because trees will make a forest, trees will make a bow, and that’s the hardest truth to know.


End file.
